The Good, The Bad, And The Oddly, is the name of the newest release on Oldgrowth Records by the Northern California-based duo, Space Oddity. Space Oddity is a two-part operation consisting of Devon, who produces the electronic music, and Tracy who then comes through and lays down a guitar track “often in one take”, she says. The two met at Humboldt State University, where they also met Jordan Roper of Oldgrowth Records.

With the handy advantage of being located in “Deep in the woods, United States”, or as Devon and Tracy call it “behind the redwood curtain” Oldgrowth has had the ability to find the lesser known artists who are, what they consider to be, “the hidden gems; the forward-thinking, raw, and experimental artists who thrive in the underground.”

The EP itself is described by Oldgrowth on their facebook page as “some amazing glitch hop and guitar solos”, which pretty much hits the nail on the head. The EP features some funky glitch-hop sub and mid range synths, and some almost dubstep worthy wobbles, but at the forefront of the majority of the tracks are some amazing blues-rock guitar solos, and shameless 80’s arena rock sounding riffs. Which appears to be exactly what they set out to accomplish. When asked what their major influences for the EP were they said “Deeper dubstep, Opiuo, Pink Floyd, and Alice In Chains”. Another one of the influences they listed, which took me by surprise, was their early musical education provided by their elementary, middle, and high schools. Sadly they also informed me that these music programs have died since the housing market came down in California. These programs provided the groundwork for their musical career and they claim their EP “would not have happened without them.” The failure of the school music departments also gave them their mission statement, to “keep music in the lives of children.”

Devon has another alias he goes by, Devstep, which he uses mostly for deep dubstep production. Most notably tracks such as “exponential decay” and “Fractal Broccoli.”

Space Oddity: The Good, The Bad, And The Oddly

Sailing The Solar Wind

And the album begins with an intricate, yet melodic and laid back track. It’s a proper intro to the album with just the right mixture of the glitch hop you’re used to hearing with a few strumming guitar tracks and violin pieces, almost a showcase for what you’ll be hearing throughout the album.

Norcal Sunshine

This song delves a little bit more into the intermingling of guitar and electronic instruments; neither of them really taking the spot light at any time. It almost feels as if they’re still getting to know each other, the guitar soloing away a bluesy, rock riff, and some wobbles in the mid range synths to keep it bumping.

Caterpillar Shlump Bucket

This track takes a journey away from the typical deeper dubstep sound and moves into a more progressive style. The guitar in this one is probably where the Alice In Chains influence really shows up on the EP. The percussion in this track is different as well, it consists of a lot of clicks and 808 sounding sub bass.

Electric Khat

This has the guitar coming back to it’s strumming and wailing blues solos which it had on the first two tracks, they threw in some woodwinds and key instruments as well. The second half of this track goes harder than any of the others and seems to be a showcase of how they can melt rock guitar and the strangest noises they can find into one delicious stew of bang and mash.

Caterpillar Shlump Bucket (IsoTope Remix)

Isotope almost one upped them with these crazy sounds melted with what sounds like some more acoustic instruments in the background, throw in some sampled spoken vocals and you have yourself a remix.

This EP in its entirety was made in a month and a half over Devon and Tracy’s winter break. Sadly it’ll be a while before they can go on tour or perform for it since they’ve got about a year of schooling left, but for the time being you can enjoy these songs which they just put out a week ago:

Colin Rinehart

Colin Rinehart hails from Dallas, Texas and currently attends Texas State University in San Marcos. He's big into Glitch Hop, Trap and anything that catches his ear. Colin strives to find the best music coming out of the Austin/San Antonio area and bring it to your home sound system via Only The Beat.